Employee of the Year

Chapter 20 - Under Water

An hour later Larry, Roland, and I were standing on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, the legendary shopping strip. Elomeri and Jacobs was actually a block away from the main drag. Even though I grew up in LA, I knew Beverly Hills more from movies than real life. It was a beautiful day and stores were busy. Locals and tourists abounded: thin, glamorous women off all ages and races, dressed impeccably, wearing plenty of makeup, and clutching purses and handbags that were undoubtedly stuffed with cash and credit cards for an afternoon of power shopping.

            We waited in an overpriced coffee shop by the store front of Elomeri and Jacobs. Customers passed in and out, but no one looked suspicious. First came a group of Asian tourists, slender young girls dressed in black brand name outfits, chattering in Japanese or Korean, maybe some other language—I wasn’t really sure. Then an old white lady, well tanned and decked out in furs and oversize sunglasses, arrived, accompanied by her fifty-something Mexican maid. Our cell phones were quiet. No calls from the war room at Passion, which meant no further Elite Gold card transactions coming through Elomeri and Jacobs since that morning.

            It was a long, boring wait that afternoon. We decided it was time to break into shifts, the way Charlie suggested. Larry would stay and cover for the rest of the day. Roland would come in the morning, covering the first half of the next day. Then I would take over in the early afternoon tomorrow and remain until the close of business.

            That night I had trouble sleeping. I was nervous about my shift. I couldn’t be sure how I would react if I came into contact with the identity thieves. It seemed like I was being asked to take more and more risks at Passion. Of course I did have some choice. I could have refused this project, just like I could have refused to pursue Jesse Stark the way I did the month before. But that would mean I had no future at the company. That would mean I was out of the running for Employee of the Year.

I thought about Roland, who would be working alone during the morning shift. I wondered why Larry and Charlie would have allowed that. Charlie was worried about an inside job, and he wouldn’t have fingered Roland without a pretty good reason. Charlie had good instincts, and he was as sharp as anyone I’d ever worked with. They must have some plan to look after Roland during his shift that I wasn’t aware of.

            I got to thinking; if Roland was collaborating with the fraudsters, how would he play the situation tomorrow? Would he tip them off that we were watching and tell them to cancel the current project? Would he have them try to steal from Elomeri and Jacobs during his shift, giving them cover to get away and then make up some excuse why he couldn’t catch them?

            Finally, as I mulled it over, I realized that if Roland was working with the thieves, he would have a specific plan in mind. He would want the thieves to wait for my shift and then make an attempt. He’d want the scam to go down on my watch. That way I’d be on my own to face off against the criminals. If I was brave and tried to go after them, I probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance. If I chickened out or managed to lose them during their escape, I would get the full blame for fucking up the stakeout. Either way, if the thieves struck during my shift, odds were it would end badly for me. The worst things were for me, the better Roland’s chances at clinching Employee of the Year.

            I stayed home the next morning and had a late breakfast with Suzy. No way I was going to go into the office before my stakeout duty, which could go pretty late. One thing I did do was pick up some wheels. Since my own car was still under repair, Teresa gave me permission to expense a rental for my stakeout duty at Elomeri and Jacobs. My rent-a-car was a shiny white Ford Escort, the kind of bland sedan you only see in the big rent-a-car lots by the airport. I picked up the car and bought some groceries to take back to the apartment, since Suzy had no way to go out and do shopping without a car.